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Optimizing Runs
Category:Spoiler Overview Take this guide with a grain of salt, as it varies the more unlocks, skins, tokens and other items you unlock. New players should work to unlock the Time Shop before worrying about anything listed here. Setting a Goal This game, and in particular the events, are predicated on a single goal - unlocking the last thing possible as fast as possible. That last thing depends on what your goals are, and increasing time cost they are: *Complete Apocalypse Task list *Summon Time Creatures *Maximize Souls Complete Apocalypse Tasks This is the fastest, and provides multiple tokens per run (Soul, Dark Energy, Damage) with an ideal 30 Soul Tokens total. The final task determines the end point as you'll need either Guitars (It), Chef's Surprise, or Dolls (Her). To get there, you will need 3 Crowns (at least stage 300) and 5 Necklaces - pretty easy. You'll be able to summon Rick but you'll generally be breaking even or losing in terms of Souls acquired. You will likely have summoned 4 Mummies and 1 Troll. A reminder that one of the last tasks required Stage 400, which can be a serious challenge if you are not using the Red Wool. Time to complete varies, but doable in ~24 hours. In fact, if you have all the necessary components, you can likely get this done in 8 hours of active play (5hrs to unlock the Laboratory). This works out to ~35 Time Orbs, and ~5 Space Ore. Summon Time Creatures To max out the Time Shop you need 5,500 Time Orbs (!!), 225 Space Ore, and 70 Star Crystals. This assumes you've completed the previous goal and are aiming to summon at least 1 Dragon. That's a 9.6 hour summon time, without IAP. It will also require a Crown (floor 400) and 100 Dolls (~17 boosted Her summons) - so stage 400. You will have summoned at least 6+ Mummies by this point, and probably 2 Trolls. How efficient you are with Her (Dolls) determines how often you can instead boost Thingy (for more meat for Mummies). You'll have summoned Rick here, and potentially Princess Priscilla. Due to the Crown & Necklace costs, you are unlikely to summon more 3 Dragons and 4 Trolls on any given run. With active play, you should be able to summon 10+ mummies per 24 hour period (~80 Time Orbs), with Goblets as the limiting factor. Expect to spend 24-48 hours for the first Dragon, which means doubling a night's worth of the HR Department. This works out to ~100 Time Orbs, ~10 Space Ore, and 1 Star Crystal. Maximize Souls This requires you to get the Red Wool, summon Princess Priscilla, and reach at least 80 million estimated damage (not Souls). It will provide you with 20+ Time Orbs, 4 Space Ore, and 1 Star Crystal - as well as at least 100 million souls (which is ~25 more Time Orbs). For this to work properly, you will need to maximize all your Soul Chants (maybe Soulful) early on in the run, as well as invest in the +Dark Energy upgrades where possible including Purple Wool. Dark Energy, above all else, will be the determining factor for hitting the goal quickly. You also want to completely upgrade the Dark Altar. The HR Department and Daily Doubler are key to speeding this process up. This can take 5-7 days, will give ~650 Time Orbs (assuming you convert Souls:Orbs), ~15 Space Ore, ~5 Star Crystals, depending on the level of your Time Creatures. Starting Condition Unlocks This assumes that you have the Time Store unlocked, therefore all spells, the Mighty Hammer, and all Soul-based rooms. If you want to summon Time Creatures, you'll need their respective gem-based rooms, as well as the Treasury. Skins are entirely optional, but more so in terms of +item drops. Chants At a minimum, you want maxed production chants to at the start, then Damage/Dark Energy/Soulful at rank 5. This will cost 3.2m souls. If you are planning to maximize souls, then I suggest maxing all chants at the start of a run. In Store Boosts Holy quality of life Batman! At a minimum, you want to remove ads. Dropships are the lifeblood of quick runs due to time warps, and ads are not fun to watch through. The bounty package (double DE, +1 resource, Dark Fist autocast) has a tremendous boost to speed. The 30% creature generator works to about 20% overall quicker speed (doesn't work on converters). Tesla is useful for Time Creature spawns - in particular Dragon #2, and Troll #2 - otherwise you need to get lucky spins on the wheel. In short, every single purchase has a noticeable improvement in overall progress. Optimizing Skins The game has plenty of bottlenecks, and skins can help with some of them. They have some smaller benefits for damage and DE, but the resource increase is very useful. This applies in particular to all the summons in the Mechanics and Greenhouse. A "fully skined" Dryad or Warbot is still less DE per minute than a single Her spawn, with Treachery applied, but every bit helps. Time Shop You want the Mummy and Time Wheel unlocked, at a minimum. Next goal is Dragon, then Troll, then maxed Mummy, then Time Warp boosts. Time Warp boost math is odd - it can hit 9+ minutes by summoning Her. Red Wool is essential if you are aiming to summon a lot of Time Creatures, or are trying to maximize Souls. You should never use a Red Wool if you cannot get at least 1 Star Crystal back in a run, same with Purple Wool and 3 Space Ore. You will want to summon your first Mummy after unlocking the Mechanics, and start summoning a Troll once you have 1K Ogre Hair, and start summoning a Dragon once you have unlocked the Sanctum (potentially earlier if you don't mind juggling Basilisk/Blood Bats). This will allow the summon time to complete near the time where you actually have all the resources to complete the summon. Spells Metamorphose is king. This doubles the drop of any targeted creature. With practice, you'll learn the timing so that it actually hits the creature before death (often better to use Bind first). Near essential for any spawn Mechanic+ (e.g. Mechanical Eye and beyond). Very useful when trying to summon Time Creatures in long runs. If you've used a Red Wool, then you have necklaces to spare and should max this. Hell Fire is great for pushing floors with Dragons or Lab creatures. If you've used a Red Wool, you should have necklaces to spare and should max this. Treachery is tough. It provides a huge boost to Dark Energy production, in particular when you use it against Lab creatures. Time creatures are immune. Do not spend the crown to upgrade, unless you are planning to maximize souls and therefore can get more from Wheel spins. HR Department For short runs, only invest up to Poison / Magic Box. For long runs, max this, and double every morning. Ideally, you are doubling Thingy Meat / Goblets to get as many Mummies as possible. You could also double Her for more DE, but then you'd need a lot of active play to get Thingy Meat. Room Upgrades For short runs, you want to speed up Arbitrarium, Mine, and Scavenger. For Time Creature runs, speed up Treasury (25 Exotic Mushrooms upgrade for Observatory, then Magic Staves, and Guitars). For Maximum Souls, get all the +DE boosts you can. Drop Ship The countdown restarts when you click the button, so you want to be quick enough. The Warp Boost will pay large dividends. In some cases, it's best to stop summoning a creature as the doubling will only give you 1x the drops and reset the summon timer. 90% of the time, this applies to Laboratory creatures. In some rare cases, this applies when you have a few seconds left to spawn a Creature and want to wait to click so that you can double that creature. If you know the maximum possible time for a time warp (1-4 minutes, depending on upgrades), and the Her summon time is less than that amount, pause the summon, click the drop ship, then unpause. You want to cast Metamorphose and Treachery as much as possible on Her (or any Laboratory creature). Creature/Production/Converter Upgrades *As a general rule, never spend a Crown or Necklace to upgrade a creature. *Gremlins, Spiders, Blood Bats, Zombies, and Vine Monsters should be maxed. Laboratory creatures, Dryads, Basilisk, Ogre, Lich, Succubus, Satyr should not. All other creatures are optional, but rarely beneficial except on Soul runs. *Roots, Vines, Bones, Bone Shears, Bone Heart, Poison, Shinium Bars should be maxed. Your resources are much better used elsewhere. Reminder that the game's production is balanced around not upgrading anything but Gremlins and Zombies. When you upgrade something and it now consumes more resources, you will be required to manually manage production to keep the balance going. Bottlenecks These are stages of the game where you have to wait for something to progress in order to get to the next step, and with few options to speed it up. Creature spawn bottlenecks should be addressed through Metamorphose - cutting the time in half. Production/conversion bottlenecks...you need to plan for them. The three worst are Sap production (since it needs Bones, Bone Shears, and Vines), Magic Staff (you need LOADS of them), and Shinium Bars (2.5k for the Laboratory). You will learn to love the Factory. Maximizing DE As a general rule, the 3rd creature of every floor gives more DE/second than the others. The total amount of unlocked skins and their associated upgrades impact this. Further, each Creature has a summon cost, and some of them are not sustainable. Use of Treachery on cooldown, except when a Laboratory spawn is due <2/4 minutes. From that, I have a personal list of creatures I like to manage for high DE, where there's only a little bit of supply management required. *Gremlin, Orc Mage, Ogre *Spider, Blood Bat, Basilisk *Zombie, Skeleton Mage, Lich *Ent, Vine Monster, Dryad - Sap/Tendrils will be required. *Mechanical Eye, Iron Golem, Warbot *Imp, Satyr, Succubus *Thingy, It, Her Note: Warbots give significantly more DE than Iron Golems but require a significant stock of Clockwork to keep running. If you have a large stock, feel free to use. Summoning Her means you are not summoning Thing, which gives meat for Mummies. Summon Her over the day (for Treachery), and then Thing for overnight + daily double to get meat. Conclusion For large portions of the game, there is some solid balance in terms of making choices and balancing production rates. Learning to properly juggle the factory is key. This is only a guide, how each player wants to play is entirely up to them. Category:Guide Category:Apocalypse